WTH why can Home Assistant not trigger Siri Shortcuts?

Month of "What the heck?!"
1

It would be very useful if we could trigger Siri Shortcuts from Home Assistant. This could be used with automations (when garage door opens on a weekday between 7 and 8 AM then trigger shortcut on iPhone that opens directions to work).

I know this has been discussed in the past, but it appears nothing has come of it.

What do you think? How the heck could you use this feature?

I should note, if this is possible through YAML then I hereby amend my WTH to be “ WTH why can Home Assistant not trigger Siri Shortcuts through the GUI?” lol

2

This got me thinking and researching this. I’m not exactly sure what you’re requesting, but if you’re referring to shortcuts in the Shortcuts app, then I’m afraid Apple retains control over how they are triggered. I’m not an expert, but I can’t find any evidence Apple allows 3rd-party apps like Home Assistant to trigger Shortcuts. Maybe someone with more developer experience can weigh in on that.

You do have a number of existing choices though, including NFC tags, alarms, people arriving/leaving home, workouts, sleep changes, and more. Of interest is the ability to setup “Personal Automation” shortcuts triggered when an Apple Home accessory state changes.

To use your example, you can export your garage door to Apple Home using the HomeKit Bridge Integration. Then in the Home App tap “Add automation” and trigger on its state change and set the time of day conditions. Then when selecting actions, scroll down to the bottom and tap “Convert to Shortcut” to get the full list of possibilities from the Shortcuts app. One side effect of this is that the shortcut will run on your phone regardless of who is opening the garage door. A better trigger for this Shortcut might be when your phone connects to your car’s Bluetooth.

3

I’m fairly sure you are correct. The best option available is to go through an email with the email trigger in Shortcuts.

4

Thank you both, I did not realize it was simply not possible. I will look into the email suggestion.

5

would it be possible to expose a helper sensor to homekit and let an iOS automation use it as trigger for a shortcut?

6

I use twilio for this exact reason. I have notifications turned off for any text messages received from my twilio number and evaluate the messages through shortcuts. I have this set up bi-directionally… for example, asking Siri to “find my camper” runs one shortcut that activates a virtual switch which in turn, runs a HA automation that text messages me a specific message with the camper’s current gps coordinates. Another iOS shortcut evaluates this message and pulls up directions to my camper - driving directions in Apple Maps if I’m connected to CarPlay and walking directions in Google Maps if I’m not connected to CarPlay.